Madness
by EverAfterGirl
Summary: "Mr. Masters, I will ask you again. Did you kill Daniel Fenton?" Short, dark drabble. Thoughts appreciated. Oneshot.


**This was originally going to be an edited, higher quality rewrite of Acceptence...but it kind of spiraled into something else on its own. Random dark drabble. Enjoy.**

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><p><strong>Madness<strong>

The sickening smell of blood filled the air with a sharp, bitter metallic smell. If you breathed through your mouth to escape the smell, it would coat you tongue and you could almost taste it. Either way, it was enough to make anyone sick. And tonight, the pavement was soaked in the sticky red liquid.

Sounds louder than gunshots came from the old building, and a dark ominous pillar of smoke had began to seep from it. The school appeared to be on fire, and yet no one was aware of it. No one noticed Casper High slowly burning to the ground that day. Why would they? It spring break after all, and the last place on anyone's mind was the school.

Yet...if they had noticed. If they had simply driven past and seen the unnatural violet flames, they might have been able to save the collapsing building. If they had saved it, maybe they would have been able to save him as well. Yes, there had been someone in the building that day. Actually, there had been two people...but one of them had escaped the incident. It was universally known that Mr. Masters had been in some way responsible for the fire, but after Daniel Fenton's unfortunate and untimely death...no one had really felt brave enough to challenge him about what had gone down that day.

No one asked, and as a result Mr. Masters remained silent. He thought about the incident all the time; it plagued his days and his nights, haunted his dreams and made him see things that were not truly there. Any specialist would have told him that not talking was the reason for his troubles, and if he didn't talk, he would go mad in relatively no time at all. Yes, even the most unskilled specialist would have been able to give him such counsel...but he did not go to a specialist. The world did not question him about Mr. Fenton's death, and he did not say anything about it.

Insanity is no laughing matter. At times, Mr. Masters would find himself in a room of his house huddled to the ground with no recollection of the past several hours. He spoke to no one. He never left his house. He never moved on, nor did he comfort the family of the one who had been lost. The man stopped grooming himself, stopped caring for wounds he received, and sometimes he acted as if he were shocked to be human. His forms switched off and on randomly, without his consent or even knowledge. He was falling apart at the seams.

Then one day, something snapped him out of his daze. He was in the lab of all places, somewhere he had vowed never to return. He knew not how he had ended up there, nor why he clutched the glove in his hand or even where it had come from. Upon closer examination, he had discovered the white glove was part of a hazmat suit. That had shocked him to his core. The only hazmat he had ever encountered with white gloves had been...

No. It was impossible. Insane. He could not allow such thoughts within his mind. He was aware of his own madness, and he would not speed up the process with thoughts of the murdered Fenton boy. The boy who's death Mr. Masters was responsible for. The glove looked so similar though, that Vlad couldn't just shake the thought from his mind.

"...and that was when you decided to seek treatment?" The psychiatrist inquired, sharp green eyes peering through her rectangular glasses. She seemed to be assessing him. Judging him. He didn't like it at all.

When he didn't respond she scribbled a note onto the spiral resting on her lap. "Isn't that correct, Mayo-Mr. Masters?" Ever since the incident had onset the madness, he had been forced to surrender his position as mayor. No one wanted someone who was possibly a murderer running their city.

"Yes, Janine. I do believe that was the time I decided." He voice was bored and a little irritated. Weren't these people supposed to be patient? Notoriously good listeners? Maybe Ms. Janine was as much of a failure at her job as he had become at his.

"Ms. Edwards." There she went, correcting him once again. Just as she did each time he used her first name. He was her senior; he was not required to address her with a title of respect.

Mr. Masters folded his hands into his lap, unkempt fingernails a ghastly sight to behold. Ms. Edwards looked slightly nauseated by the very sight of them. "Janine, how is this supposed to help me? All you've done is decided I'm too far gone to understand my surroundings. I refuse to pay you if all you can and will do is insult me."

"My apologies." She stiffly rose from her chair and began to rifle through one of the file cabinets behind her. It was the one labeled M-Z. She was looking for his file, just as she did at the end of each of these sessions. She would next ask him the same few questions she always did, reassure him it was not his fault insanity had claimed him, and then prescribe another drug he would refuse to take. It was all the same. All routine nonsense.

"Now, Mr. Masters," She began apprehensively. "Is it alright with you if I ask you a couple of questions pertaining to the accident?" She had every reason to be cautious. Although the questions had never changed, his attitude towards them was always different. The first time, he'd been calm and collected. Once he had nearly strangled Ms. Edwards in rage. And last time, he had sobbed his way through the answers.

It was as if each of their meetings was scripted. "I suppose you may." Insanity or not, he was still a gentleman, and gentlemen were polite to women.

"Where were you on March 27th, the day Casper High burned to the ground?" The first question was always the easy one. Where had he been? He had not caught the madness at that point, so details of that time were clearer than entire weeks of his current life.

The answer was simple enough really. "I was in the high school, on the second floor. In room number twenty seven." The astronomy room. He had known that was the most likely place to lure the boy, and sure enough, the teen had been exactly where he predicted.

_Danny Fenton squinted at the star chart, furrowing his brow in concentration. He didn't look up when he heard the footfalls announcing Vlad's arrival. "You know, these charts aren't right. Orion's belt is much farther to the east of this star right here." He explained, pointing to a small, irrelevant star on the chart. _

_"How dreadfully exciting..." Vlad had been beyond sarcastic that day, already impatient and getting angrier by the minute. _

_Danny had looked up then, eyes flashing green in annoyance at the man's condescending tone. "Why am I even here?"_

Why am I even here, he had asked. If he hadn't been there, he wouldn't have been buried beneath the flaming, crumbling building.

Ms. Edwards nodded, making the smallest of notes on her clipboard. She had his answers memorized at this point; why did she even bother asking anymore? She hesitated, then pushed her glasses higher up her nose in a very cliched gesture. "Mr. Masters."

"Yes?"

"Would you allow me to ask you a new question?" Her voice sounded strained and apprehensive. "I've been holding off on this one until I was sure you were...relatively stable. Enough so that you wont react with violence."

Mr. Masters was intrigued. They were to change up the script? Mix things up and get out of the never ending routine he was stuck in? It sounded nice, so he nodded his approval.

He didn't expect the question to be so straightforward, for most had danced around the topic. The world was too afraid to ask.

Ms. Edwards leaned in closer to him, clutching her clipboard until her knuckles where whiter than fresh snow. "Mr. Masters, did you kill Daniel Fenton?"

The older man leaned back against his seat, pace quickening alarmingly. One of Ms. Edwards' assistants rushed to summon a paramedic, afraid the man was having a stroke.

"Yes or no?" Ms. Edwards had no sympathy at this point. It had been weeks since their first meeting and he refused to open up to anyone. "It's not a hard question."

"Oh, but dearest Janine," He finally managed to find his voice. "It happens to be the hardest question of all."

The room radiated tension. The cheery radio station playing in the background would've been humorous in any other situation. The aura of the room was an intense threat of danger. Venom laced Ms. Edwards' voice as she spoke once more. "Stop talking in riddles old man. Tell me now, did you kill Daniel Fenton?"

"Yes." It was all over in one word. Freed from the burden of the secret, Mr. Masters allowed himself to embrace the madness.

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><p><strong>Any thoughts? I'd really appreciate an opinion. Even a flame would be received happily.<strong>


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